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COLOSSOSAURS: a new group of giant dinosaurs

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Sauropods were long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs that exceeded all other land-living backboned animals in maximum body size. Representatives of the sauropod subgroup Titanosauria were the most abundant and diverse herbivorous dinosaurs in the Southern Hemisphere landmasses during the latter part of the Cretaceous Period, in the few tens of millions of years prior to the mass extinction that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

In the present paper, Bernardo J. González Riga and colleagues present an extensive study of the shoulder, hip, and limb bones of South American titanosaurs, and recognize the presence of a newly-identified titanosaur lineage that they name Colossosauria (meaning “giant dinosaurs”).

Colossosaurs include the heaviest terrestrial animals known to date (with maximum masses reaching as much as 50–70 tons), such as the Argentinean forms Argentinosaurus, Patagotitan, and Notocolossus, the latter boasting a powerfully-built humerus 1.76 m in length. The extreme body size of the largest titanosaurs poses considerable challenges for understanding the behavior and locomotion of these enormous animals.